[Footnote B: It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that in the private correspondence between Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, the former signed herself "Mrs. Morley," while her friend masqueraded as "Mrs. Freeman."]

The comedy is about to begin as a common-looking person makes his appearance in the box. He is a dull, heavy fellow, who suggests nothing more strongly than a fondness for brown October ale and a good dinner into the bargain. Anne turns towards him with as affectionate a glance as she thinks it seeming to bestow in public. Is he not her husband, George of Denmark, and the father of all those children whom she never has succeeded in rearing to man's, or woman's, estate? He is a faithful consort, too, which is saying not a little in the days when Royal constancy, on the male side, is the rarest of jewels. George has vices, to be sure, but they belong to the stomach rather than the heart—that obese heart which, such as it is, the good Queen can call her own.

"Hath your Royal Highness ever seen this Cibber act?" asked the Duchess, by way of making conversation. She never stands on ceremony with soft-pated George, and does not wait to speak until she is spoken to.

"Cibber—Cibber—who be Cibber?" queries the Prince, a beery look in his eye, a foreign accent on his tongue.

"He's the son of the sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, your Highness."

"I do not know—I do not know," mutters George drowsily. Then he falls asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who has been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again.

But hush! Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage. The play has begun, and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the archaic prologue, which asks:

  "What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles
  Hence gain'd Heaven's brightest and eternal smiles?
  What Nation upon Earth besides our own
  But by a loss like ours had been undone?
  Ten Ages scarce such Royal worths display
  As England lost, and found in one strange Day.
  One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld,
  And yet the next the envy of the World."

[Illustration: COLLEY CIBBER

In the character of "Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord
Foppington," in Vanbrugh's play of "The Relapse, or, Virtue in
Danger."

From the Painting by J. GRISONI, the property of the Garrick Club]

The King is dead! Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows happens to be new.[A]

[Footnote A: The remainder of the original prologue, had it been recited, would have raised a storm.]

But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as women always do—on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly, but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind.

"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so abroad."

"Vio. A New Woman?

"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an old
Devil, an old Maid.

"Vio. Oh, there's no Fiend so Envious.

"LEO. Right; she will no more let young People sin, than the Devil will let 'em be sav'd, out of envy to their happiness.

"Vio. Who is she?

"LEO. One of my own blood, an Aunt.

"Vio. I know her. She of thy blood? She has not a drop of it these twenty years; the Devil of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in the roome."

These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in the case of Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit, and the speaker, with her almost sensuous charm and the melody of that marvellous voice, is so fascinating, that the house is suddenly caught in some entrancing spell. Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden glory of a newly unfolded flower, and murmurs of admiration and surprise are heard on every side. More than this, Queen Anne, whose thoughts may have been far away with the dead Duke of Gloucester, betrays a sudden interest in the performance, and thus sets the fashion for all those around her, excepting his most sleepy Royal Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He dozes on; twenty angels from heaven would not disturb him.

As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around the new Leonora, so that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative titter when the fop defines the characteristics of a gentleman:

"Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished—

"SERVANT. With fine language?

"SIR COURTLY. Fine teeth, you sot; fine language belongs to pedants and poor fellows that live by their wits. Men of quality are above wit. 'Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes we write, but we ne'er regard wit. I write, but I never write any wit.

"SERVANT. How then, sir?

"SIR COURTLY. I write like a gentleman, soft and easy."

It is only a titter, however, that Cibber can produce this afternoon, or evening,[A] nor does the audience take the usual relish in that touch-and-go rubbish of a duet sung by a supposed Indian and his love, a duet in which the former declares:

  "My other Females all Yellow, fair or Black,
  To thy Charmes shall prostrate fall,
  As every kind of elephant does
  To the white Elephant Buitenacke.
  And thou alone shall have from me
  Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,
  The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee."

To which the lovely maiden answers:

  "The great Jaw-waw that rules our Land,
    And pearly Indian sea
  Has not so absolute Command
    As thou hast over me,
  With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,
  Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee."

[Footnote A: Theatrical performances in this reign generally began at 5 p.m.]

When the play is over Nance can take a new part, that of a feminine conqueror. She has overshadowed Colley Cibber, who is more dazed than chagrined at the dénouement, and she has proved more potent for the public amusement than all the beauties of "Jimminy, Gomminy," with its elephants, its jaw-waw, and its pearly Indian Sea. As she sits in the green-room, smiling in girlish triumph while she looks around at the beaux and players who crowd about her, anxious to worship the rising star, her eloquent glance falls on George Farquhar. There is a tear in his eye, but a radiant expression about the face. What does the Oldfield's success mean to the Captain? Perhaps Anne knows, as she throws him a tender recognition; perhaps she thinks of that song in "Sir Courtly Nice" which runs: